An Aussie family vacation has been saved thanks to a compassionate stranger who felt compelled to help the stranded travelers after learning about their plight on social media.
The Melrose family had been in the middle of a 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) road trip across Australia last week when their car broke down in the middle of the Northern Territories.
Daryn Melrose, his wife, and two daughters had left their home in Gippsland with two boats in tow so they could compete in the national minnow sailing championships in Darwin.
Since the youngsters had spent all year training for the tournament, they were heartbroken over the idea that all of their efforts had been for naught – but with 620 miles standing between them and Darwin, it seemed as if they had no chance but to give up on their dreams of competing.
Upon learning about their dilemma, ABC News made a social media post with the hopes that one of their readers would feel spurred to help the Melrose family.
As fate would have it, Darwin resident Rodney Sims had been scrolling through his news feed when he saw the plea for help and recalled a time when he had been in the same predicament.
“About 30 years ago, strangely enough, I was in a similar situation with a broken-down car and someone helped me out … this was my time to give back,” Sims told ABC News.
Sims then hopped in his truck and drove all the way down to where the family was staying in a Tenant Creek motel. After hitching up their boats to his vehicle, he brought the Melroses all the way back to Darwin, amounting to a staggering 1,250-mile round-trip journey.
Needless to say, the Melroses were incredibly touched by the stranger’s act of kindness.
“What a legend – what a fantastic effort,” Daryn told the news outlet. “He drove all the way down to us, hooked up the trailer, and drove us all the way back to Darwin.
“My daughters and I could not be more grateful for his efforts,” he added. “They got here on time and are hoping for podium finishes after their competitions.”
Photo by Daryn Melrose
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Toyota has begun testing a new Prius model that uses ultra-thin solar panels to eliminate the risk of a car running out of juice on the road.
The company announced earlier this week that they plan to commence public road trials from late July 2019.
The trials, which will be conducted in collaboration with the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and electronics corporation Sharp, aim to assess the effectiveness of improvements in cruising range and fuel efficiency of electrified vehicles equipped with high-efficiency solar batteries.
To facilitate the execution of this trial, Sharp modularized its high-efficiency solar battery cells (with conversion efficiency of 34%), previously developed for a NEDO-led project, to create an onboard solar battery panel.
The solar battery cell is a thin film about 0.03 mm in thickness, which makes it possible to efficiently install to fit the curves of vehicle parts with limited space.
Toyota then installed this panel on the roof, hood, rear hatch door, and other parts of its “Prius PHV” and produced a demo car for public road trials. By enhancing the solar battery panel’s efficiency and expanding its onboard area, Toyota was able to achieve a rated power generation output of around 860W, which is approximately 4.8-times higher in comparison with the commercial model Prius PHV (equipped with a solar-charging system).
In addition to substantially boosting its power generation output, the demo car employs a system that charges the driving battery while the vehicle is parked and also while it’s being driven – a development that is expected to lead to considerable improvements in electric-powered cruising range and fuel efficiency.
Toyota plans to conduct the trials under various driving conditions in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, Tokyo, and other areas. Various data, including the power generation output of the solar battery panel and the amount the drive battery is charged, will be obtained and verified, and then used in the development of an onboard solar recharging system.
The PV-powered Vehicle Strategy Committee, which NEDO launched in 2016 in collaboration with several other entities, will evaluate the benefits based on improvements in CO2 emissions reductions and convenience, such as the number of times a vehicle requires recharging.
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Not all heroes wear capes, but this guy has already saved dozens of dogs and cats from euthanasia – and he has done it all while dressed as Batman.
27-year-old Chris Van Dorn has always been a fan of the beloved Caped Crusader; so when he began volunteering for various animal rescue organizations around Orlando, Florida, he decided to combine his two passions and use a Batman suit to bring attention to the importance of pet adoption.
“It kind of just came as a way to embody all the good I wanted to do in the world,” Van Dorn told The Dodo, “and make it easy for people to talk to me right off the bat.”
Photo by Batman4Paws
Not only has he used the suit as a conversation starter for why people should adopt shelter pets, he has also donned the suit to transport dozens of animals from the shelter to their loving forever homes.
Initially, Van Dorn used the superhero costume as a means of keeping all of his rescue missions anonymous – but his good deeds finally brought his real identity into the limelight after he was featured as an honorary GoFundMe Hero in May.
Since Van Dorn launched his nonprofit Batman4Paws in 2018, he has embarked on dozens of hours-long cross-country road trips to rescue dogs from euthanasia and bring them to loving families that are willing to adopt them.
Thankfully, the GoFundMe article helped to finance Van Dorn’s rescue missions since his crowdfunding page has collectively raised about $32,000 over the course of the last 10 months.
Photo by Batman4Paws
“When I was first starting out, I was keeping everything really anonymous,” Van Dorn told the news outlet. “I would sign everything ‘Bruce Wayne’ and not put my real name out there … My catchphrase is, ‘It’s not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me’ and I still hold that true today.”
Van Dorn now hopes that he will be able to find a compassionate citizen to donate a bigger van so he can replace his current Batmobile – a humble Honda Accord – and transport more animals on his rescue missions.
He also aims to use his pilot’s license as a means of using air travel as a more efficient means of transporting his doggos in distress.
Additionally, since he recently got his trusty sidekick Mr. Boots licensed as a therapy dog, the two have been making plenty of guest appearances as Batman and Robin at various hospitals around Florida.
Photo by Batman4Paws
The Dynamic Duo has also donned their costumes for adoption events and animal shelter fundraisers.
Van Dorn says that the costume helps to draw in more visitors, and he takes every opportunity to hand out brochures and stickers concerning the importance of adoption.
If you would like to learn more about Van Dorn’s mission or make a donation to his nonprofit, you can visit the Batman4Paws website.
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Quote of the Day: “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ballpark. Aim for the company of immortals.” – David Ogilvy
Photo: by Jon Scally, CC license
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An ingenious new app is recruiting thousands of Good Samaritans as volunteers for medical emergencies.
If an ambulance is dispatched in response to someone in the midst of cardiac arrest or some other life-threatening emergency, the “GoodSAM” app sends a cell phone alert to first responders and medically trained civilians who are nearby to the person in distress.
The Ambulance Victoria website says that for every minute that a cardiac arrest patient doesn’t get CPR or defibrillation, their chances of survival fall by 10% – so recruiting the help of nearby pedestrians can often make a world of difference for a patient’s recovery.
The app’s life-saving potential recently made headlines in Australia after an off-duty paramedic received a GoodSAM notification concerning a 49-year-old man who had collapsed at his Melbourne home in the dead of night.
Since the man lived close to her home, the paramedic was able to rush to his side and give him CPR until the ambulance arrived.
“I didn’t even take the time to get out of my pajamas,” the paramedic told 9News. “I just threw on a hoodie and went down to [his] house.”
Her quick actions ended up saving the man’s life – and her rescue is just one of the app’s many success stories; Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos told the news outlet that the platform has already helped to save 20 people since the start of the year.
Though the app originally limited its volunteer participants to nurses and professionally trained medical professionals, Victorian representatives are now allowing any regional residents with basic CPR and first aid training to enlist as a volunteer with the app.
According to the GoodSAM website, over 40,000 trained volunteers are registered with the app’s international alert system, and they have already responded to roughly 8,000 alerts.
If you would like to learn more about the life-saving platform or register as a respondent, you can visit the app’s official website.
(WATCH the explanatory video below)
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Hundreds of Dutch bus stops are getting eco-friendly makeovers so they can be transformed into lush green sanctuaries for honeybees and humans alike.
All 316 bus stops in the city of Utrecht are receiving green rooftops covered in sedum plants. Not only are the succulents good for improving air quality, they are also good for helping to support dwindling pollinator populations.
The city also says that succulents are good for storing rain water, capturing dust particulates from the air, and providing a cooling environment in the summertime.
The sedum roofs are just one of the ways that the city is improving upon their transit shelters; over the course of the next few years, Utrecht will be installing solar panels on every single one of their bus stops.
In February, the city also announced that they would be replacing their current transit vehicles with a new fleet of electric buses.
Regional officials are aiming to employ an entirely carbon-neutral transit fleet before 2028.
Furthermore, Utrecht is offering subsidies to city residents who want to replace their own worn-out rooftops with sedum roofing or solar panels.
“A green roof is good for a healthy and livable city … that can therefore better cope with climate problems. It helps to prevent flooding and ensures that we suffer less from heat,” reads the city website.
“A good time to install a green roof is when your old roof covering is worn out or if you still have to replace a roof with asbestos,” it continues. “To be eligible for a subsidy, your roof must be larger than 20 square meters – or you can also apply for a subsidy together with your neighbors to get to the 20 square meter mark.”
(WATCH the video of the bus stops in action below)
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This story was submitted as a nomination to the Reader’s Digest “Top 50 Nicest Places in America” contest: a crowd-sourced effort to uncover nooks where people are still kind and respectful in an era of cultural and political divides. Be sure and vote for which story you think should be nominated as the Nicest Place by visiting the Reader’s Digest website.
When snow falls, it’s a race to the snowblowers to see who can do their neighbors’ walks first. Everyone wins!
When the first snow falls in winter on South Chestnut Street in Casper, Wyoming, for some, the silent precipitation is a starting gun. Whoever gets up and out first will snow-blow everyone’s sidewalk, winning the “race.” They also have the same race to mow one another’s lawns in the summer – or so our nominator, Danica Sveda, tells us.
To anyone who has had to shovel snow or cut grass, it seemed too good to be true – so we called up one of her neighbors, Marlene Ashbaugh, who lives just a block over on Walnut Street.
She couldn’t vouch for what happens on Chestnut, but says, “My next-door neighbor, he always goes up and snow-blows all of ours. There’s probably one on Chestnut Street who does that,” adding that “it happens all over” the community.
Hard to believe, but we can confirm that it’s true at least in “Big Tree,” as the neighborhood is known. The name calls out the huge, older trees that line the streets, a rarity in high-plains towns. But in Casper, a city of 55,000 in the center of the state that sits at 5,100 feet of elevation, there are 123,000 trees.
They’re like old friends who occasionally make a big mess, as one big storm showed recently.
“Lemme tell ya, Mother Nature has her own way of pruning. Branches, trees, everything was knocked over,” Ashbaugh recalls.
City officials said they’d haul the trash out as long as the residents piled it up—so they jumped into action.
“Instead of being mad, they were out there laughing, gathering the branches. Kids were helping, it was absolutely amazing,” says Ashbaugh. “I don’t know how many tons of branches and debris were hauled to the dump that year, but it was incredible.”
A Pakistani doctor has come up with a revolutionary new form of artificial skin for acid attack survivors that will likely only cost a fraction of the price of current treatment methods.
Currently, burn victims can either be treated with skin that has been grafted from another part of their body or doctors can use skin that has been sourced from a donor. That being said, the procedure for grafting skin from the patient’s own body can be particularly expensive; and since donated skin can’t be stored for long periods of time, these grafts are often in short supply.
Doctors can use artificial skin that has been grown in a lab, but it usually costs about $900 per square inch – which is particularly unaffordable for young women who have fallen victim to acid attacks in rural or underdeveloped regions.
Thankfully, Dr. Rauf Ahmed from the Jinnah Burn and Reconstructive Surgery Center in the Pakistani city of Lahore told CNN that he has developed a much more inexpensive solution to the problem of costly artificial skin grafts.
Rather than use the trypizine enzyme to cultivate artificial skin cells, he began using sodium chloride – also known as salt – to develop the skin samples.
According to the doctor, his breakthrough will likely bring the cost of skin grafts down from $900 to about $5 per square inch. Furthermore, it can be stored for up to two years.
After the artificial skin was successfully tested on animals, Ahmed began human trials on a number of acid attack survivors and burn victims back in October 2018 – and with the trials set to conclude at the end of the summer, he says the results have been “outstanding”.
“Mortality rate among patients with more than 70% of their bodies burnt is 90%. However, with the large-scale production of the biological human skin, surgeons will be able to reduce the burns to 20% and allow patients to live longer,” University of Health Science (UHS) Vice Chancellor Professor Javed Ikram told the Express Tribune about Ahmed’s work.
“In fact, the skin which we have prepared in Pakistan is better than its imported counterpart in many aspects,” he added. “We already have our skin specimen approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and … although we cannot give a date, the commercial production of these medicines and artificial body parts will begin soon and we will try to keep the prices at the lowest.”
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A baby bird has been given a new lease on life after a resourceful partygoer made sure that it could be transported to a rescue center in the safest – and most modern way possible.
Animal rescuers from the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Northern Utah (WRCNU) were surprised to find an Uber waiting outside of their front doors last week. The only passenger that had been waiting in the backseat of the car was a tiny baby bird.
Tim Crowley and his friends had rescued the bird as they were in the middle of enjoying a weekend get-together in Clinton.
They had been sitting outside when the bird suddenly fell out of the sky – and they could not figure out where it had come from.
Upon calling the WRCNU, rescuers said that Crowley ought to bring the bird in for treatment as soon as possible. Since Crowley had been drinking, however, he and his friends did not feel capable of driving the little lesser goldfinch to the animal hospital.
“At first it was a joke, like, ‘Hey, maybe we should just call Uber!’” he told KSTU. “Then we were like, ‘No, really. Why not? We’re paying them.’”
Crowley and his friends then called an Uber for the bird and told the driver about their unusual passenger. When the driver canceled the trip due to the bizarre nature of the journey, Crowley then waited to tell their second driver about the feathery passenger until she had already arrived.
Luckily, the woman agreed to drive the bird to the rescue center.
Though WRCNU rescuers were confused by the arrival of the little bird, they quickly took it under its wing and made sure that it got the proper treatment.
The bird, who has fondly been named “Petey Uber” by the rescuers, will most likely be ready to be released back in the wild just in time for the migration season at the end of the summer – and it’s all thanks to Crowley’s quick thinking.
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by the WRCNU
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Quote of the Day: “Useful pain comes to you when you are taking risks, and acting out of love and adventure…The pain is demanding we rise to the occasion.” – Rob Brezsny
Photo: by Thomas Hawk, CC license
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He grew up in a Newark, New Jersey tenement, and when his Russian Jewish immigrant parents didn’t have the money to send him to medical school, he worked to become a pharmacist. But, later it was his business acumen that landed him the CEO job for a home improvement company in California. When he was fired from the job in a power struggle, he didn’t give up and go back to being a pharmacist—he co-founded a store that went on to revolutionize the home improvement industry with its warehouse concept.
Now, the co-founder of The Home Depot says he intends to give most of his remaining fortune to charity, after already having donated nearly two billion dollars to philanthropic organizations across the world.
When the Atlanta billionaire dies, 80 to 90 percent of the remainder of his wealth will be transferred to his foundation.
His current estimated net worth is $4.5 billion, and Bernie and his wife Billi Marcus are signatories of The Giving Pledge, along with 200 others—like Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson and Elon Musk—a coalition Bill Gates and Warren Buffet designed to recruit wealthy families to pledge at least half their fortunes to charity.
The Marcus Foundation, which has no website of its own, focuses on veteran care, medical research, hospitals, and Jewish causes. Bernie has given instructions to the board to invest in “medical discoveries and treatment for kids with autism (and) creating 20 to 25 centers around the nation to help veterans suffering from brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.”
Though he is 90 years old today, he recently told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that he feels young and hopes to give away most of his money while he’s alive to enjoy it.
”Everything I live for now is finding the right things to put my money into and that can give me a rate of return in emotion and doing good things for this world.”
In April, Marcus donated $25 million to the Marcus Autism Center to spearhead research on the causes and cure for autism, as well as feeding problems known to effect pediatric patients with the disorder.
In 2017, Marcus also funded and founded The Marcus Institute for Brain Health with a $38 Million grant, a Colorado facility devoted to innovative and intensive treatment of U.S. military veterans who now suffer from PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Around 0.9 billion hectares (2.2 billion acres) of land worldwide would be suitable for reforestation, which could ultimately capture two thirds of human-made carbon emissions.
The Crowther Lab of ETH Zurich has published a study in the journal Science that shows this would be the most effective method to combat climate change.
The Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich investigates nature-based solutions to climate change. In their latest study, the researchers showed for the first time where in the world new trees could grow and how much carbon they would store.
Study lead author and postdoc at the Crowther Lab Jean-François Bastin explains: “One aspect was of particular importance to us as we did the calculations: we excluded cities or agricultural areas from the total restoration potential as these areas are needed for human life.”
The researchers calculated that under the current climate conditions, Earth’s land could support 4.4 billion hectares of continuous tree cover. That is 1.6 billion more than the currently existing 2.8 billion hectares. Of these 1.6 billion hectares, 0.9 billion hectares fulfill the criterion of not being used by humans. This means that there is currently an area of the size of the US available for tree restoration. Once mature, these new forests could store 205 billion tonnes of carbon: about two thirds of the 300 billion tonnes of carbon that has been released into the atmosphere as a result of human activity since the Industrial Revolution.
Photo by Crowther Lab / ETH Zurich
According to Prof. Thomas Crowther, co-author of the study and founder of the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich: “We all knew that restoring forests could play a part in tackling climate change, but we didn’t really know how big the impact would be. Our study shows clearly that forest restoration is the best climate change solution available today. But we must act quickly, as new forests will take decades to mature and achieve their full potential as a source of natural carbon storage.”
The study also shows which parts of the world are most suited to forest restoration. The greatest potential can be found in just six countries: Russia (151 million hectares); the US (103 million hectares); Canada (78.4 million hectares); Australia (58 million hectares); Brazil (49.7 million hectares); and China (40.2 million hectares).
Many current climate models are wrong in expecting climate change to increase global tree cover, the study warns. It finds that there is likely to be an increase in the area of northern boreal forests in regions such as Siberia, but tree cover there averages only 30 to 40%. These gains would be outweighed by the losses suffered in dense tropical forests, which typically have 90 to 100% percent tree cover.
A tool on the Crowther Lab website enables users to look at any point on the globe, and find out how many trees could grow there and how much gamset carbon they would store. It also offers lists of forest restoration organizations. The Crowther Lab will also be present at this year’s Scientifica (website available in German only) to show the new tool to visitors.
The Crowther Lab uses nature as a solution to: 1) better allocate resources – identifying those regions which, if restored appropriately, could have the biggest climate impact; 2) set realistic goals – with measurable targets to maximize the impact of restoration projects; and 3) monitor progress – to evaluate whether targets are being achieved over time, and take corrective action if necessary.
This story was submitted as a nomination to the Reader’s Digest “Top 50 Nicest Places in America” contest: a crowd-sourced effort to uncover nooks where people are still kind and respectful in an era of cultural and political divides. Be sure and vote for which story you think should be nominated as the Nicest Place by visiting the Reader’s Digest website.
Photo by Elizabeth Shook
When illness nearly caused a beloved shop owner to close the doors, one group came to the rescue: Her customers.
For 10 years, Joan Peterson had tried to make life better for the people of Hidden Springs, Idaho. When the community had the chance to return the favor, it did.
In 2008, Peterson and her husband bought the Dry Creek Mercantile, a cluster of stores and services that sits at the heart of Hidden Springs. It’s the place where kids meet after school, where adults gather for a drink or a meal, where families come to host a wedding or graduation. It was hard work for just the two of them, running such a big operation. Things got a lot harder when her husband fell ill. And that’s when her neighbors showed her what they were made of.
“I was driving to the hospital, maybe three days before my husband passed away, and I went past the business and there were all these cars in the parking lot,” she says. “Later I found out that about 125 people came in and gave it a cleaning. Top to bottom, like it was new. I didn’t ask for it. They just did it.”
After losing her husband two years ago, Peterson briefly considered leaving “the Merc,” but discovered that her neighbors were not going to let her go that easily.
“It’s a big operation to run by myself. But they just kept helping me,” she says. “I could have walked away. But I can’t, because I love it. This is my family.”
Hidden Springs is a planned community of about 800 homes, just outside Boise, designed by its founders to avoid typical suburban sprawl and replicate an old-fashioned American small town. Instead of cul-de-sacs and rows of identical homes, it features walkable streets, unique homes, and a network of trails and carefully-preserved open spaces. Instead of strip malls and parking lots, it has the Merc and its big green space, where concerts and events take place all year.
But residents say it’s the people who truly make it special.
“We were out walking, and we heard the sound of laughter, so we went over,” recalls B. J. Shook, who nominated Hidden Springs. They found about thirty kids and parents goofing around on a homemade ice-skating rink that a bunch of dads had built next to an old barn. “It was like a Norman Rockwell picture,” she says.
Reprinted with permission from Reader’s Digest. To learn more about GNN’s part in searching for the Top 10 Nicest Places, click here.
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It’s not uncommon to see singing and dancing during the talent show segment of the Miss America pageant – but this lovely young biochemist was recently crowned the new Miss Virginia of 2019 thanks to a more unconventional performance.
24-year-old Camielle Schrier won the competition after she donned a white coat and rubber gloves for an on-stage science experiment.
Using hydrogen peroxide and potassium iodide, Schrier demonstrated the process – – and colorful results – of catalytic decomposition.
After pouring the iodide into the peroxide, the young biochemist immediately stepped away from the table to distance herself from the colorful foam that shot several feet into the air.
In addition to the performance impressing the audience, the science display clearly impressed the judges as well. Schrier was later crowned Miss Virginia 2019 – and since she is now preparing to compete in the Miss America Pageant in September, she hopes that her chemistry performance will inspire other young women to pursue their passions in STEM.
“I am more than Miss Virginia. I am Miss Biochemist, Miss Systems Biologist, Miss Future PharmD looking toward a pharmaceutical industry career,” she said in a release. “Now was the time for me to create a mind shift about the concept of talent by bringing my passion for STEM to the stage. To me, talent is not a passion alone, but also a skill which is perfected over years of learning.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Quote of the Day: “These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life that great characters are formed… Great necessities call out great virtues.” – Abigail Adams (in a letter to her husband John Adams)
Photo: by Zooey, CC license
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After creaky floorboards kept waking up his newborn daughter, an exhausted dad invented a unique spray that managed to silence his whole house – and it is now helping other sleep-deprived parents has well.
45-year-old Paul Lanzarotti reckons that he has helped thousands of weary parents with his floorboard tonic, which is made from the same lubricant on Teflon pans, but is safe, and nontoxic, categorized as a “food grade” coating by the UK government.
He came up with the idea after his brand new Italian laminate floor shrank in size due to underfloor heating. With the flooring laid throughout his entire house, it squeaked every time he took a step.
Lanzarotti and partner Tracy McCreary put up with the squeaking until they welcomed their newborn baby daughter Sienna.
Every time they put Sienna to bed, they were forced to perform a Mission Impossible-style escape. Just walking out of her bedroom would wake her – and the creaks were so loud, little Sienna would hear them from any room in the house.
“It was incredibly infuriating,” said the self-employed digital innovator from Hendon, London. “We were exhausted and it was a nightmare. Our house wasn’t fun to live in anymore.
Lanzarotti said flooring experts told him that the only solution for the creaking was to rip up and replace the floor for the whopping cost of £5,000 ($6,300).
So the “obsessive problem solver” decided to take matters into his own hands and spent hours trawling the web for a solution.
He learned that the noise was caused by friction, which could be stopped if properly lubricated. Lanzarotti also found out that a safe chemical compound found in Teflon was one of the world’s best lubricant elements.
The determine dad eventually discovered that mixing the Teflon compound PTFE with an acrylic fluid could be used to spray the flooring and stop the creaking. He then called a chemical engineering company and commissioned them to manufacture the spray into a product which he called “Stop Creak”.
Upon using the spray on his floors, he was stunned by its success.
SWNS
“I tested it at home and just couldn’t believe the result. I sprayed it in Sienna’s room first and the floor was immediately silenced,” said Lanzarotti. “Eight months later, it is still silent.
“It felt like a huge relief. When Tracy saw the difference for the first time, her face just lit up.
“You can treat a couple of rooms in an hour and it was such an easy product to come up with. To be honest I have no idea how long it lasts for,” he added. “But I’m baffled there was nothing like it before. It was such a simple problem to fix.”
Manufactured by the respected chemical company that makes WD-40, the ingredients used in the product are “pure Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and Silicon.” PTFE is known to be stable and nontoxic at lower temperatures, though it begins to deteriorate in cookware in high heat about 260 °C (500 °F). The controversial chemical used in the creation of Teflon pans, which has raised safety concerns, is PFOA. PTFE, on the other hand, is often used as a valve oil to lubricate musical instruments, in other aerosol lubricant sprays, and in Gore-Tex, an insulating material incorporating a fluoropolymer membrane with micropores.
Having nailed his invention, Lanzarotti arranged for a batch of Stop Creak to be shipped out to him so he could share cans of it between friends and family.
When they were just as “amazed” by the result, they suggested he try to sell it online. So Lanzarotti built a website, designed product labels, and listed the cans for sale on eBay for £19.99.
Sales were slow at first, and in the first couple of months, Lanzarotti only sold a handful of cans each week. Eight months later, he now sells up to 130 cans a week, and he has so far made a gross revenue of around £37,000 ($47,000).
He reckons he has collectively sold between 8,000 and 10,000 cans, and his financial projection predicts that he may end up hitting £100,000 in sales by the end of the year.
With orders flying in, Lanzarotti says he has had to put his full-time job on hold in order to manage Stop Creak.
“It started out as a side project just because we really needed a good night’s sleep,” said Lanzarotti. “But now I’m just really happy to be helping other people. I thought there must be other people who are being driven mad by creaky floors.
“It’s a no-brainer for any parent with squeaky floors, but a lot of people just live with it. It is a living nightmare for people, but it doesn’t have to be,” he added. “People don’t realize the difference it makes. It’s life-changing.”
As an “Amazon Prime” merchant, StopCreak had to pass the safety checks required by Amazon to sell to their customers. They are also required by UK law to provide a data sheet to accompany the product, which states the product should be applied in a well-ventilated area and user should avoid contact with skin and eyes.
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A groundbreaking piece of research shows that groups of people can communicate wordlessly by concentrating on the right answer—and they were correct 13 out of 16 times. And, the receiver of information was able to throw out the answer when someone was not telling the truth.
A team from the University of Washington created a method that allows three people to work together to solve a problem using only their minds.
In BrainNet, three people play a Tetris-like game using a brain-to-brain interface. This is the first demonstration of two things: a brain-to-brain network of more than two people, and a person being able to both receive and send information to others by concentrating, using only their brain. The team published its results in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.
“Humans are social beings who communicate with each other to cooperate and solve problems that none of us can solve on our own,” said corresponding author Rajesh Rao, co-director of the Center for Neurotechnology. “We wanted to know if a group of people could collaborate using only their brains. That’s how we came up with the idea of BrainNet: where two people help a third person solve a task.”
As in Tetris, the game shows a block at the top of the screen and a line that needs to be completed at the bottom. Two people, the Senders, can see both the block and the line but can’t control the game. The third person, the Receiver, can see only the block but can tell the game whether to rotate the block to successfully complete the line. Each Sender decides whether the block needs to be rotated and then passes that information from their brain, through the internet to the brain of the Receiver. Then the Receiver processes that information and sends a command – to rotate or not rotate the block – to the game directly from their brain, hopefully completing and clearing the line.
The team asked five groups of participants to play 16 rounds of the game. For each group, all three participants were in different rooms and couldn’t see, hear or speak to one another.
The Senders each could see the game displayed on a computer screen. The screen also showed the word “Yes” on one side and the word “No” on the other side. Beneath the “Yes” option, an LED flashed 17 times per second. Beneath the “No” option, an LED flashed 15 times a second.
An example of the game. A Receiver sees the panels on the left and two Senders see the panels on the right. Top row shows the screens at the beginning of the trial. The Senders (right panels) can see the green line at the bottom, but the Receiver can’t. Middle row is when Senders have a chance to review the Receiver’s decision, and can suggest that the Receiver change their mind. Bottom row: Success! The two screens after the Senders have changed the Receiver’s mind. Photo by Jiang, et al. 2019, Scientific Reports.
“Once the Sender makes a decision about whether to rotate the block, they send ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the Receiver’s brain by concentrating on the corresponding light,” said first author Linxing Preston Jiang, a student in the Allen School’s combined bachelor’s/master’s degree program.
The Senders wore electroencephalography caps that picked up electrical activity in their brains. The lights’ different flashing patterns trigger unique types of activity in the brain, which the caps can pick up. So, as the Senders stared at the light for their corresponding selection, the cap picked up those signals, and the computer provided real-time feedback by displaying a cursor on the screen that moved toward their desired choice. The selections were then translated into a “Yes” or “No” answer that could be sent over the internet to the Receiver.
“To deliver the message to the Receiver, we used a cable that ends with a wand that looks like a tiny racket behind the Receiver’s head. This coil stimulates the part of the brain that translates signals from the eyes,” said co-author Andrea Stocco, a UW assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences, or I-LABS. “We essentially ‘trick’ the neurons in the back of the brain to spread around the message that they have received signals from the eyes. Then participants have the sensation that bright arcs or objects suddenly appear in front of their eyes.”
If the answer was, “Yes, rotate the block,” then the Receiver would see the bright flash. If the answer was “No,” then the Receiver wouldn’t see anything. The Receiver received input from both Senders before making a decision about whether to rotate the block.
The Receiver, who also wore an electroencephalography cap, usedd the same method as the Senders to select yes or no.
Photo by Mark Stone/University of Washington
The Senders got a chance to review the Receiver’s decision and send corrections if they disagreed. Then, once the Receiver sent a second decision, everyone in the group found out if they cleared the line. On average, each group successfully cleared the line 81% of the time, or for 13 out of 16 trials.
The researchers wanted to know if the Receiver would learn over time to trust one Sender over the other based on their reliability. The team purposely picked one of the Senders to be a “bad Sender” and flipped their responses in 10 out of the 16 trials – so that a “Yes, rotate the block” suggestion would be given to the Receiver as “No, don’t rotate the block,” and vice versa. Over time, the Receiver switched from being relatively neutral about both Senders to strongly preferring the information from the “good Sender.”
The team hopes that these results pave the way for future brain-to-brain interfaces that allow people to collaborate to solve tough problems that one brain alone couldn’t solve. The researchers also believe this is an appropriate time to start to have a larger conversation about the ethics of this kind of brain augmentation research and developing protocols to ensure that people’s privacy is respected as the technology improves. The group is working with the Neuroethics team at the Center for Neurotechnology to address these types of issues.
“But for now, this is just a baby step. Our equipment is still expensive and very bulky and the task is a game,” Rao said. “We’re in the ‘Kitty Hawk’ days of brain interface technologies: We’re just getting off the ground.”
As a means of tackling loneliness and social isolation in English towns, local police forces have begun designating specific public benches that can be used for making friends and having conversations.
The “Chat Benches”, which are now located in two different parks and outdoor areas in Somerset, are identified by little signs reading: “Sit here if you don’t mind someone stopping to say hello!”
The Avon and Somerset Police Department Facebook page recently published photos of their two new “Chat Benches” in Burnham and Taunton with an encouraging note for readers to stop by and use them for socialization.
“The sign simply helps to break down the invisible, social barriers that exists between strangers who find themselves sharing a common place. We can all play a part…” says the police department. “Simply stopping to say ‘hello’ to someone at the ‘Chat Bench’ could make a huge difference to the vulnerable people in our communities and help to make life a little better for them.”
According to the department, 17% of older people are only in contact with family, friends and neighbors less than once a week, which can leave them feeling isolated. Collectively, this amounts to roughly 9 million UK residents who suffer from loneliness and isolation each year.
The police force launched the Chat Bench initiative earlier this month to coincide with United Nations World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. Though the officers say that there are many different forms of elder abuse which deserve our concern, they hope that the Chat Benches will help to tackle senior loneliness in their communities.
“The Chat Bench is fantastic new initiative that I hope encourages those of all ages to start many more conversations in the future,” says Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens. “I encourage you to stop by and say ‘hello’. It really could make a huge difference to that person.”
Be Sure And Share The Good Idea With Your Friends On Social Media…
For three months, Frank Sereno had been asking city officials to fill up a particularly pesky pothole on his neighborhood street. When he finally got tired of complaining about the problem, he opted to celebrate instead – and it actually worked.
Sereno is just one of the many citizens of Waldo, Missouri who have been fed up by the persisting potholes that have pervaded community roads.
This particular pothole is just one of many mini-craters that Sereno has reported to the city’s construction department over the course of the last few months. Rather than continuing to gripe about the unstable neighborhood roads, however, he decided to take a more creative approach for motivating the repair crews.
Sereno put a positive spin on the pothole’s presence in the community by buying a slice of cake with a little candle to celebrate its 3-month-birthday.
“I thought, ‘What I can I do to have a little fun,’” Sereno told WTVR. “Everyone is always complaining about the potholes, but complaining doesn’t seem to be getting anything done. So I said, I want to keep it top of mind. I know my fellow Waldo neighbors are just as disgusted as I am so I said, let’s just celebrate its birthday. Its third birthday.”
Upon posting photos of the birthday celebration to Facebook, Sereno’s neighbors expressed their amusement over his gimmick. Not only that, the pothole was patched and filled by construction crews only days later.
City workers told local reporters that poor weather conditions have prevented repair crews from being able to patch up potholes as quickly as they would like, but a little sweet cajoling was apparently just the right amount of nudging to get the job done.
(WATCH the news coverage below) – Photo by Frank Sereno
Quote of the Day: “You are under no obligation to be the same person you were 5 minutes ago.” – Alan Watts
Photo: by Allen Skyy, CC license
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